The 1913 Armory Show in Manhattan proved a pivotal moment in the history of art, introducing an American audience to the work of such European modernists as Paul Cézanne, Marcel Duchamp, and Henri Matisse. A century later, the New-York Historical Society is revisiting the legendary event in a new exhibition, “The Armory Show at 100.” Numerous pieces from the original fair will be reunited, among them seminal paintings like Matisse’s Blue Nude, 1907, and Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1912. Complementing that display are artifacts and ephemera documenting other milestones from that year, whether the opening of the redesigned Grand Central Terminal or the completion of the city’s Woolworth Building, then the tallest structure in the world. Granted none of it will shock contemporary eyes. How nice, though, to revisit a time when it might have.

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